Thursday, January 16, 2014

Oatmeal Whoopie Pie

Oatmeal is really the unsung hero of dessert. Often paired with raisins, which aren't healthy enough to make me feel better about dessert or tasty enough to make me forget that this could be filled with chocolate chips instead, the raisin takes oatmeal down. However, freed from raisin's terrifying grip, oatmeal can be the star of any dessert.

Now, the whoopie pie was not a staple of dessert for me for many years. Essentially, the non-fresh bakery version of the whoopie pie is the Devil Dog. The Devil Dog is a terrible product with a dry cake and a weak cream. I think years of eating Devil Dogs on and off prevented me from even trying this until last year.

I was working in Philadelphia and went to the farmer's market one lunch hour in search of a Lucky Old Souls burger, which was both worth the 12 block walk and 25 minute wait, as nothing beats home cured bacon, pickled tomatoes and what were at the time the best pickles I'd eaten since the 1980s. However, once I finished waiting for my fine burger, I took a stroll through the half block of farmer's market. While the vegetation was not exciting, there was a fine bakery stand. Looking around, I saw an oatmeal whoopie pie, which with its cream-filled center and oatmeal cookies, I made the plunge. And once I finished eating my overly delightful burger, I ate the whoopie pie, even though I didn't need that much richness in one meal, I was hooked.

Of course, the downside of being hooked was not the delight in enjoying them, but my frustration in not being able to find them. Well, today, at the Amish Farmer's Market, they were sitting there, six of them in a package, just in front of the register, leading to their purchase and my enjoyment of one this fine evening.